NEDA proposes poverty alleviation,
environmental protection a top priority for new governmentMANILA, 9 Jun 2010 (PNA) — The National
Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said it will recommend
that the Aquino administration should prioritize poverty alleviation
and environmental protection in its development agenda.

In a press briefing, NEDA Director General Augusto
Santos said the proposal will be included in the Medium Term Philippine
Development Plan (MTPDP) which they will submit to President-elect
Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III on July 1.

Aside from poverty alleviation and environmental
protection, Santos said the Aquino administration must also focus
on balancing the budget, as well as infrastructure and public investments.
Full
story

Fisheries production to grow 8%
in 2010 despite El Niño13 Jul 2010 (J Ng/Business Mirror) – Despite the El Niño
weather phenomenon that caused extensive damage to the fisheries subsector
during the first half of the year, the Bureau
of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) expects fisheries
production to grow by 8% in 2010.

BFAR director Malcolm I. Sarmiento said this assumption
factors in the consideration that no strong typhoons will ravage the
Philippines for the rest of the year.

“Barring strong typhoons, the fisheries subsector
will grow by 8 percent. Aquaculture will propel the growth [of the
subsector],” said Sarmiento in a telephone interview.

The BFAR chief noted that seaweed and fin fisheries
production will boost aquaculture production this year, and mariculture
parks will contribute significantly to the subsector’s performance.
“We will continue [to set up] mariculture parks all over the
country. It is one of our adaptation mechanisms against climate change.”

The fisheries subsector has been buoying farm growth
in recent years. But production in January to March was down by 0.63%
due to the extensive damage caused by El Niño.

The subsector accounted for almost 25% of total farm
output in the first quarter. Aquaculture posted a 0.36% output increase.
Commercial and municipal fisheries registered production decreases
of 3.5% and 0.15%, respectively. The gross value of fisheries production
was Php53.1 billion, lower by 1.2% from last year. Full
story

New DENR chief lays out priority
programsMANILA, 5 Jul 2010 -- Taking a cue from the people‘s campaign
that won the presidency for President Benigno C. Aquino III, Department
of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Acting Secretary
Ramon J.P. Paje is banking on “people’s participation”
to do the seemingly “almost impossible” task of cleaning
Metro Manila’s waterways, especially Manila Bay.

“My belief is that 30% to 40% of the dumping
will be reduced. We will demand people’s participation,”
Paje said in his acceptance speech at turnover rites last July 2 on
his first work day as the country’s 19th DENR chief.

In his speech, Paje outlined the priority areas of
concern that he said he hoped to address as DENR secretary, including,
illegal dumping of garbage, air pollution, climate change, denuded
public lands, and the still incomplete decade-old program to delineate
the boundary lines of the country’s forests.

Paje vowed to remove graft within the department
through “well-defined anti-corruption measures,” including
full disclosure through the DENR website of all bidding activities
undertaken by the department. Addressing would-be grafters, he warned,
“If we cannot catch you, we will deny you of every opportunity
to commit graft.” He assured employees of the implementation
of the department’s provident fund, saying he would push the
inclusion of employee benefits in the department’s 2011 budget
proposal and not “rely on savings anymore.”
Paje holds a master’s degree in urban planning and a doctorate
in public administration. Full
story

Tuna fishers get reprieve from
ban on FADsGENERAL SANTOS CITY, 8 Jul 2010 (RS Sarmiento/Business World Online)--
With a 3-month ban on fish aggregating devices (FADs) in effect, the
government has offered an alternative measure that would allow Filipino
fishers to catch tuna in the Philippines’ exclusive economic
zone (EEZ), a tuna industry official said yesterday.

Bayani B. Fredeluces, executive director of the Socsargen
Federation of Fishing and Allied Industries, Inc., said the Bureau
of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) has issued an administrative
order allowing tuna fishing in the country’s EEZ despite the
ban on FADs.

"Fishing operators need to be accredited by
BFAR (to avail of) the alternative measure that was put in place after
an analysis of the impacts of fishing on tuna stocks," Fredeluces
said in a phone interview.

A study conducted by BFAR and the local tuna industry
showed that only about 0.5% of big-eye tuna stocks in the EEZ will
be caught by nets at a depth of 125 fathoms, or 750 feet. The quantity,
said Freduluces, is “negligible.”

Fredeluces said that in order to limit the catch
of big-eye tuna, the government limits net size to a maximum depth
of 115 fathoms, or 690 feet, since the bulk of big-eye tuna stocks
can be found in much-deeper waters.

The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission
(WCPFC), an international fisheries regulating body, first imposed
the ban on FADs from August to September last year. Locally called
payao, a FAD is a permanent, semi-permanent or temporary structure
or device used to lure fish.

This year the ban will last from July 1 to September
30. It will be restored in the same period next year.

The WCPFC introduced the measure in the western and
central Pacific in order to reduce big-eye and yellow-fin tuna mortality
by 30% over three years. Countries that signed the agreement are the
Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru,
Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. Although not
a party to the agreement, the Philippines adopted the ban in its EEZ
as a member of the WCPFC. Full
story

BFAR pushes tuna processing in
Eastern Visayas TACLOBAN CITY, 26 May 2010 (Business World Online in icsf.net)
-- The Eastern Visayas office of the Bureau
of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) is encouraging investments
in tuna processing within the region, so that local residents can
capture at least some of the benefits of abundant tuna stocks in the
area.

BFAR regional director Juan D. Albaladejo said at
least 10 Mindanao-based fishing boats have been operating in the waters
off Eastern Samar. "Since we started monitoring last year, these
10 boats have captured 20,000 metric tons of tuna in Eastern Samar,”
Albaladejo said.

There are no big fishing vessels in the province,
and tuna fishing by locals using small motorboats has been minimal,
he added. Some locals may be hired as fish workers on the vessels,
otherwise tuna fishing activities provide few benefits locally because
the catch is usually brought to either Manila or General Santos City
for processing.

BFAR is inviting tuna processors in General Santos
City, considered the "tuna capital" of the Philippines,
to set up canning and other post-harvest operations in the region,
either in Eastern Samar or in Tacloban City, Leyte. “We want
the catch to be processed within the region to boost the local economy,"
said Albaladejo.

Albaladejo said Eastern Visayas can replace at least
some of the tuna production lost as a result of the implementation
starting last January of a two-year ban on yellow-fin and big-eye
tuna fishing by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission.
The ban aims to restore depleted tuna stocks in the high seas near
Micronesia, Indonesia, Palau, and Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Kiribati,
Marshall Islands, Nauru, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.

The Philippine Fisheries Development Authority has
allocated Php300 million to establish a fish port in Tacloban City.
Full
story

Agribusiness, aquamarine industries
emerge as key job generators in Region 12GENERAL SANTOS CITY, 12 Jul 2010 (PNA) – The growing agribusiness
and aquamarine industries in Region 12 or Southwestern Mindanao are
projected to become the top job destinations for skilled workers in
the region in the next decade, according to a study on the region’s
labor market.

Conducted by the Department
of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the study showed that the
two industries will continue to anchor economic expansion and generate
employment in the region over the next 10 years, Ma. Gloria Tango,
the agency’s regional director, said.

Region 12 covers the provinces of South Cotabato,
Sultan Kudarat, Sarangani, North Cotabato and the cities of General
Santos, Koronadal, Cotabato, Kidapawan and Tacurong.

Demand for skilled fishing workers reportedly remains
high among companies engaged in fishing operations in the high seas
as well as inland fishery ventures. Tango said that even now, “there’s
a shortage of qualified workers for some specific jobs in the fishing
industry,” and piracy of highly skilled workers has become a
common occurrence within the industry.

Tango said the study recommended immediate policy
reforms, especially in terms of the delivery of government-led technical
and vocational (tech-voc) training programs in the region, which need
to be aligned with the requirements of the labor market. Full
story

Zamboanga seaweed farmers receive
aid from LGU, NEDAZAMBOANGA CITY, 24 May 2010 (PNA) – The local government
and the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) turned
over Php340,000 worth of projects to a group of farmers engaged in
seaweed farming in this southern port city.

Mayor Celso Lobregat said the beneficiaries of the
projects belong to the Mampang Seaweed Planters Association (MASEPLA)
based in Mampang, seven kilometers east of this city. MASEPLA is composed
of 70 seaweed farmer-members.

Lobregat said the projects consists of a ¼
hectare seaweed nursery, a dryer platform, two motorized boats and
a sorting hut.

Funding for the project was equally shared by the
local government unit and NEDA.

Lobregat said the city government also is concreting
portions of the road from the highway of Mampang leading to the project
site to improve the beneficiaries’ farm-to-market access. Full
story

Calamianes study: Fishers caught
between degradation and development10 Jun 2010 (JCU) -- The livelihoods of tens of millions of fishers
in the world’s richest coral reef region, the Coral Triangle,
are at risk from the combined impact of collapsing fish stocks, environmental
decline and coastal development.

A new study focusing on a group of islands in the
Philippines by Dr Michael Fabinyi of the ARC Centre of Excellence
for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University has highlighted the
pressures being experienced by tens of millions of subsistence fishers
in the region bounded by Australia, the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

“The Calamianes islands in the Philippines
are fairly typical of what is happening throughout the region,”
Fabinyi said. “Until recently they had relatively pristine coral
reefs and healthy levels of fish stocks – but the impact of
overfishing, including dynamite fishing and cyanide fishing, to feed
the hungry markets of China and Asia have caused extensive degradation
to the reefs and declines in the fish that depend on them.”

“In Southeast Asia it is commonly assumed that
tourism development will provide some of the answers by employing
people who can no longer fish for a living – but in my study
I did not find that,” he said. “Instead it became clear
that what was spoken of as ecotourism was, in reality, often coastal
resort development – and it was pushing many coastal families
off their land as well as squeezing them out of their fishing areas.”

“It has certainly created jobs for some former
fishers – but by no means for all, and this wider social impact
needs to be taken into account when thinking about the future livelihoods
of the tens of millions who have, until now, drawn their living from
the sea.”

Fabinyi said that the creation of marine protected
areas in some parts of the Philippines and Coral Triangle had proved
beneficial both for fishers and genuine ecotourism, although it has
also restricted the area that fishers rely on for their livelihood.

“In the Calamianes, for example, I found that
most fishers were working longer hours, over greater distances, for
fewer fish caught – which is a clear sign that the fishery is
continuing to decline. At the same time resort developers were pressuring
them to give up their land on the coast, without creating sufficient
livelihoods to compensate for the loss on land and at sea.”

Tourism development is often seen as a ‘silver
bullet’ solution to poverty in underdeveloped regions, he says,
but studies on the ground indicate the picture is more mixed –
while some livelihoods are created, others are being destroyed. Also
tourism is less reliable than fishing, being subject to booms and
busts and the cost of world air travel.

“The people who are affected by these forces
of environmental degradation, fish stock decline and coastal development
are so numerous throughout the region that this is emerging as a very
serious social issue for all the countries in the Coral Triangle as
well as those which border it – like Australia,” Fabinyi
says.

His paper “The Intensification of Fishing and
the Rise of Tourism: Competing Coastal Livelihoods in the Calamianes
Islands, Philippines” is published in the journal Human Ecology
(2010) 38, pages 415–427. Source

Antidote to fish toxin isolated
from local plantCEBU, 9 Jun 2010 (M.T.V. Ilano/SciDev.Net) – Scientists
are improving a Pacific folk remedy used to treat a form of food poisoning
that prevents millions of people in the region from consuming fish.

“Octopus bush” (Heliotropium foertherianum)
is the traditional medicine of choice in the Pacific islands for ciguatera
fish poisoning which is caused by powerful ciguatoxins produced by
microscopic Gambierdiscus algae.

Ingested by fish and clams, the toxins accumulate
in the food chain, causing diarrhoea, vomiting and neurological symptoms
in those who eat it. At least 100,000 people, mostly in the Pacific,
are poisoned each year.

Scientists from the Institute of Research for Development
(IRD), collaborating with colleagues from the Louis Malarde Institute
in French Polynesia and Pasteur Institute in New Caledonia, Melanesia,
screened around 100 medicinal plants for their activity against ciguatoxins.
Octopus bush extracts were found to be the most promising, containing
a molecule similar to rosmarinic acid — a compound known for
its antiviral, antibacterial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

The researchers think rosmarinic acid may remove
the ciguatoxins from their sites of action, as well as being an anti-inflammatory.
They are now seeking to patent rosmarinic acid and its derivatives,
and are developing octopus bush extracts with an even stronger detoxifying
effect.

Lead researcher Dominique Laurent of the IRD in French
Polynesia said that Japanese research has suggested that octopus bush
may contain alkaloids, naturally occurring chemicals that can be toxic.
Fear of poisoning from the remedy may be deterring people from using
it and a detoxified version might be more acceptable to local people,
he said.

“We prefer to improve the folk remedy because
it could be difficult to explain to local populations to buy a drug
rather than use a plant growing on the beach,” he said.

But the researchers have yet to consider how they
would commercialize such a drug, said Laurent.

The poisoning is rarely fatal but the neurological
symptoms can last several years. Fear of poisoning has reduced fish
consumption, and the resulting dietary shift could lead to higher
rates of cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes. Full
story

Bureau
of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) Region 12 Director
Sani Macabalang pointed out that the law, which was approved in February
this year, still lacks implementing rules and regulations (IRR). “The
90-day period (allowed by law) has lapsed,” he said. “The
IRR should have already been drafted and approved. No other
agency except the [NCMF] is given the power to promote and develop
the Philippine Halal Industry.”

Several technical agencies are mandated to assist
the development of the industry, including BFAR, the National Meat
Inspection Service, Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Product Standards,
Bureau of Animal Industry; Bureau of Food and Drugs, Department of
Science and Technology (DOST), Department of Trade and Industry and
Department of Tourism.

In Region 12, BFAR works with the Bureau of Public
Information-ARMM, DOST-Region 12, DOST-ARMM and Department of Agriculture
and Fisheries-ARMM to assist and support the NCMF, particularly with
respect to its technical, regulatory and monitoring functions. Full
story

PCG bares sea pirates’ new
modus operandiMANILA, 24 May 2010 (PNA) – Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo,
Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) commandant, said called for cooperation
among ASEAN countries to address sea piracy following the reports
that sea pirates have developed a newmethod of operation.

Tamayo said sea pirates have begun seizing entire
vessels plying international routes and later selling them as “different”
ships to unsuspecting buyers. This modus operandi was uncovered
with the arrest of seven Indonesians who are now detained in General
Santos City.

Tamayo explained that in the past, pirates would
only remove valuables from the vessels and then leave. The PCG has
stepped up the gathering of intelligence information to better understand
the sea pirates’ patterns of operation and counter their illegal
activities.

Three incidents have been recorded so far involving
the seizure of foreign ships and their crews. The first incident happened
last February 7 and involved the M/T Asta, which was later found in
Surigao del Norte under a new name, Roxy-1.

Last April 27, sea pirates seized the Malaysian tugboat
“Atlantic 3” that was towing the barge “Atlantic
5.” The two vessels, renamed “Marlin VII,” were
later found sold to a buyer in General Santos City. Tugboats sell
for about Php20 million in the Philippines.

Piracies are usually perpetrated at night, and the
crews are subsequently released, often aboard a life raft near the
Spratly Islands.

The PCG has asked several Philippine government agencies
for assistance in solving piracy, including the Office of Transportation
Security, Philippine Navy, Philippine National Police-Maritime Group,
Department of Foreign Affairs and the National Bureau of Investigation.
Full
story

Taiwanese poachers pay USD25,000
fineTUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan (M. Prudencio/BFAR) – Four Taiwanese
fishermen who were apprehended for poaching and illegal fishing in
Cagayan Valley in September 2009 paid the government a compromise
fine of USD25,000 to settle their administrative case.

Assistant director Gil Adora of the Bureau
of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) said that the early
resolution of the case through the payment of an acceptable penalty
worked to the government’s advantage because the accused were
able to present a reasonable argument for their presence in Philippine
waters at the time of their arrest. They asserted they were merely
taking shelter from prevailing bad weather, and showed a certification
from PAGASA to prove their claim.

Adora also noted that the fishing gear found on the
boat was designed for deepwater fishing and not suitable for use in
the area where the apprehension was made, which was only 1.5 nautical
miles from the nearest shoreline.

BFAR agreed to a compromise fine after determining
that the Taiwanese did not have the capacity to pay the minimum fine
prescribed by law and had to secure a loan in their home country just
to pay the compromise amount.

The Taiwanese, identified as Liou Rong Tsair, Guu
Ming Jong, Huang Ping Ho and Lee E Ren, were apprehended off Calayan
Island, Cagayan on September 20, 2009. The foreigners were abroad
their vessel, marked BK 6705, when they were apprehended by elements
of the local Philippine Coast Guard based on the island municipality
located north of Cagayan. Full
story

The undocumented Chinese fishing vessel, with bow
number 05022, was also seized after yielding two embalmed sea turtles
and several bottles, which were suspected to contain giant clam meat,
according to PNA.

Ten other crew members were reported missing and
may have been left in small sampan boats after their mother
ship was apprehended.

The Philippine
Daily Inquirer learned from various sources that the nine
Chinese nationals of the fishing boat Song Song Hai 05022, who were
brought to the capital Saturday from Balabac, told investigators that
10 of their companions were left behind, including the boat captain.

“They gave us the names of the 10 others who
they claimed were left behind,” said lawyer Adel Villena of
the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development.

The fishing boat tried to elude the patrol vessel
of the Bureau
of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the Coast Guard for
over half an hour early Thursday, some 45 nautical miles northwest
of Balabac Island.

Among the items found inside the vessel were 19 identification
cards, 10 of which had no claimants among the apprehended boat crew,
according to investigators. Seized were various fishing paraphernalia
used for capturing marine turtles, including bales of nets and cotton-like
stuffing materials and formaldehyde.

The investigators reported that the wooden boat was
also equipped with an aquarium designed to hold live marine animals
for long periods. They believed the boat was engaged primarily in
collecting marine turtles and stuffing them for ornamental purposes.

A Chinese embassy official who visited the suspects
refused to confirm the information.

Villena said they have strong evidence against the
suspects, but expressed concern about the government’s “low
rate of success” in prosecuting cases of poaching by foreign
nationals due in part to diplomatic pressures.

“There has been no real success in prosecuting
them (foreign poachers). We’re just hoping that the new rules
on environmental cases issued by the Supreme Court can make a difference,”
she added. Full
story: Inquirer; PNA

World

Regulations, economic crisis squeeze
seafood industry -- UNNEW YORK, 26 Apr 2010 (UN News) -- New regulations,
such as retailers’ requirement that fish must be certified as
sustainable, and the impact of the global economic crisis are affecting
the seafood industry, especially producers in developing nations,
the United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.

Half of all fish imported by rich nations, valued
at $43 billion annually, comes from the developing world, and the
industry directly employs 45 million people, while approximately half
a billion people rely on fish for some or all of their incomes.

But for poorer nations, getting their fish to market
is becoming increasingly difficult, FAO noted.

As of the start of this year, the European Union,
the world’s largest import market for fish, requires that all
imports of wild fish come with a certificate validated by the fisheries
authorities of the country flagging the vessel that originally caught
them.

Through this new regulation, which other major markets
are contemplating putting into place, the EU is hoping to combat illegal,
unregulated and unreported fishing, but compliance is placing burdens
on exporters.

Also, growing numbers of retailers, such as Trader
Joe’s in the United States, will only carry fish certified as
coming from a sustainable fishery, further raising the compliance
bar.

Such regulations mean that small-scale producers
must acquire the technical know-how, familiarize themselves with best
practices, invest in upgrading equipment and learn the new paperwork
and procedures.

Compounding this is the global economic downturn
which resulted in a drop in imports in almost all fish markets last
year, FAO pointed out, with estimates for 2009 showing a drop in value
from 2008, when exports were valued at over USD100 billion.

For its part, the agency’s Subcommittee on
Fish Trade, set up in 1985, seeks to bring together both importing
and exporting countries to find ways to “create an enabling
environment for the sector to develop while successfully addressing
the challenges that development presents,” said Ichiro Nomura,
FAO Assistant Director-General for Fisheries and Aquaculture.

“Market access requirements can be shaped to
create incentives to achieve sustainable fisheries,” he stressed,
calling on policy-makers to ensure that such measures are “sound,
science-based, transparent and do not create unnecessary barriers.”

The agency has long called for good management of
fisheries by developing nations if they are to continue operating
in the long-run, as increased demand for fish can potentially lead
to over-exploitation and wasteful use of stocks. Source

More states endorse UN treaty
to curb illegal fishingNEW YORK, 29 Apr 2010 -- Five more States have signed a United
Nations treaty that aims to curb illegal fishing by denying port docking
rights to ships involved in the illicit practice.

The five new signatories to the agreement –
Australia, Gabon, Peru, New Zealand and Russia – bring to 16
the number of States that have ratified the treaty, which requires
signature by 25 countries to enter into force.

Eleven other FAO members – Angola, Brazil,
Chile, the European Community, Iceland, Indonesia, Norway, Samoa,
Sierra Leone, the United States and Uruguay – signed the agreement
in November 2009 after it was approved by the agency’s governing
conference.

“Once it becomes active, this will be the most
significant international treaty dealing with fisheries since the
1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement,” said Changchui He, FAO’s
Deputy Director-General, following the signing of the agreement by
Russia at the agency’s headquarters in Rome today.

“We take it as a very positive sign that the
Russian Federation as well as other recent signatories have come on
board. It indicates a broad level of support. The sooner the treaty
receives the required 25 ratifications to become active, the sooner
countries will have a valuable new tool for combating illegal fishing,”
he added.

“Port state measures” refer to actions
taken to detect illegal fishing when ships come to port. The actions
can include inspection of documentation, catches and equipment when
boats land to take on fuel and supplies or offload fish, or requiring
vessels to make activity reports before entering port.

Vessels found to be involved in illegal fishing can
be denied docking rights, causing considerable financial losses to
their owners. Such measures are among the most effective means of
preventing the import, trans-shipment or laundering of illegally caught
fish. Full
story

UN-backed study reveals rapid
biodiversity loss despite pledge to curb declineNEW YORK, 30 Apr 2010 -- Global biodiversity has been declining
alarmingly despite a pledge by world leaders in 2002 to help curb
the loss of earthly life forms, a new United Nations-supported study
shows.

In more than 30 indicators – measures of different
aspects of biodiversity, including changes in species’ populations
and risk of extinction, habitat extent and community composition –
the study found no evidence of a significant reduction in the rate
of decline of biodiversity.

The pressures facing biodiversity continue to increase,
the study reveals, and concludes that the 2010 target for reducing
the loss of biodiversity has not been achieved. The findings represent
the first assessment of how the targets made through the Convention
on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2002 have been missed.

“Since 1970, we have reduced animal populations
by 30 per cent, the area of mangroves and sea grasses by 20 percent
and the coverage of living corals by 40 per cent,” said UNEP’s
Chief Scientist, Joseph Alcamo. “These losses are clearly unsustainable,
since biodiversity makes a key contribution to human well-being and
sustainable development, as recognized by the UN
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),” he said. Full
story

UN agencies highlight problem
of child labor in fisheries10 May 2010 – The plight of child workers in fisheries largely
goes unnoticed because data on the issue is not readily available,
a group of experts brought together by the United Nations has warned.

“Worldwide, 132 million girls and boys aged
5 to 14 years old work in agriculture – this figure includes
children working in fisheries and aquaculture,” said Rolf Willmann
of the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Fisheries and Aquaculture
Department. “But because child labor in fisheries is so widely
dispersed in small-scale and family enterprises – or is actively
hidden by employers – it is difficult to obtain hard data on
the true extent of the problem. This makes it difficult for many policy-makers
to tackle it,” he added.

To address information gaps, FAO, in cooperation
with the UN International
Labour Organization (ILO), recently convened a workshop of
international experts to share information and come up with policy
recommendations specific to child labor in fisheries. They include
legal measures and enforcement, policy interventions, including education,
development and livelihoods support, and better data collection to
close information gaps.

According to FAO, fishing is possibly one of the
most hazardous occupations in the world, and while child labor in
fisheries occurs in all regions, it is most widespread in Africa and
Asia. Children engage in activities that range from active fishing,
cooking on boats, diving for reef fish or to free snagged nets, herding
fish into nets, peeling shrimp or cleaning fish and crabs, repairing
nets, sorting, unloading, and transporting catches, and processing
or selling fish. Full
story

World lags far behind on sustainable
development goals, UN chief warnsNEW YORK, 24 May 2010 -- The United Nations commission entrusted
with harmonizing economic development with environmental conservation
wrapped up its annual session today with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
warning that the world is way behind schedule in setting its ecological
house in order.

“Few of the challenges identified at the Rio
Earth Summit have been adequately tackled,” he told delegates
attending the 18th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development,
referring to the 1992 UN conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which
sought to recast development and halt the destruction of irreplaceable
natural resources and the pollution of the planet. “New ones
have gained added urgency.”

Ban announced the appointment of UN Under-Secretary-General
for Economic and Social Affairs Sha Zukang as chairman of the “Rio+20”
conference, to be held in Brazil in 2012 in an effort to spur further
action.

“Let us recapture the solidarity and creativity
of the Earth Summit. We have a responsibility to future generations
to implement what we have pledged. Good ideas are not enough. We need
focused action. We know what we need to do. We know what works. The
time for delay is over. The time for delivery is now,” he concluded.

The Rio+20 Summit, mandated by the UN General Assembly
in 2009, will focus on four areas: review of commitments; emerging
issues; green economy in the context of poverty eradication and sustainable
development; and institutional framework for sustainable development.
Full
story

WTO chief says US blocking trade
dealMANAMA, 16 May 2010 (R Wright/The National) -- The US is the main
obstacle to concluding the recently restarted Doha round of trade
negotiations, says Pascal Lamy, the director-general of the World
Trade Organisation (WTO).

Speaking yesterday at the Bahrain Global Forum, he
said that barring a single issue concerning fishery subsidies, an
agreement was largely in place. However, “the United States
is seriously attempting to conclude these negotiations on more US
terms than are already on the table. We need the US president to take
a risk and send a bill to Congress in the hope of getting it through.”

The trade negotiations began in November 2001. The
objective is to lower trade barriers around the world, which allows
countries to increase trade globally. However, they stalled on issues
including agriculture export and fisheries subsidies in 2008.

Yesterday, Mr Lamy said that agriculture was no longer
preventing a deal, barring a few small amendments, and added that
the US, EU and Japan had all agreed to drop export subsidies. “We
are not 100% there but, politically speaking, most of it is on the
table,” he said.

In the view of the WTO, a successful conclusion could
inject up to USD300 billion (Dh1.1 trillion) a year into the global
economy and be completed within six months. Full
story

‘Greening’ global
fisheries could boost fish stocks, UN report saysNEW YORK, 17 May 2010 -- An USD8 billion investment annually in
rebuilding and ‘greening’ the world’s fisheries
could both increase fish catches and generate USD1.7 trillion in long-term
economic returns over the next four decades, according to a new United
Nations report.

An influx to the fishing sector – with funding
being covered by scaling down or phasing out the nearly USD30 billion
worth of subsidies in place currently – is needed to curb the
excess capacity of the world’s fishing fleet while supporting
workers in alternative livelihoods.

Funding is also vital to reform the management of
fisheries through such policies as setting up marine protected areas
to allow depleted stocks to recover and to grow, says the Green Economy
report, whose preview version was released today.

“Fisheries around the world are being plundered
or exploited at unsustainable rates,” said Achim Steiner, Executive
Director of the UN
Environment Programme (UNEP). “It is a failure of management
of what will prove to be monumental proportions unless addressed.”

The choices governments make now and in the coming
years regarding the fishing industry will impact more than half a
billion people, he pointed out. Full
story

World's oceans could be completely
depleted of fish in 40 years: UN report18 May 2010 (N Klopsis/Daily News) -- The world’s oceans
may be completely depleted of fish in 40 years if action is not taken
to replenish stocks, the United Nations is warning in a new report.

In a preview of its upcoming report entitled the
Green Economy, the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) states that “mismanagement,
lack of enforcement and subsidies totaling over USD27 billion annually
have left close to 30% of fish stocks "collapsed.”

“If the various estimates we have received
... come true, then we are in the situation where 40 years down the
line we, effectively, are out of fish,” Pavan Sukhdev, head
of UNEP’s Green Economy plan, told Agence France Presse on Monday.

The report estimates that 35 million fishers and
20 million boats are actively trawling the world’s waters, with
fisheries supporting about 8% of the global population.

Currently, only 25 percent of fish stocks - consisting
mostly of lower-priced species – are considered healthy or reasonably
healthy, according to the UNEP report.

The report outlined several steps that may potentially
replenish global fish stocks, including the phasing-down of government
subsidies for fisheries, enacting policies to protect depleted stocks,
and cutting down on the amount of active fishing vessels and fishermen.
The plan is estimated to require “an investment of between USD220
to USD320 billion worldwide.” Full
story

Global fish production continues
to rise20 May 2010 (S Pappas/Worldwatch.org) -- Total global fish production,
including wild capture and aquaculture, rose to approximately 159
million tons in 2008, the most recent year with data. This is a 1.27%
increase from 2007 production levels.

Aquaculture, after growing steadily for the last
four decades, now contributes nearly half of the fish produced worldwide
and is expected to catch up to wild capture by 2012. Overall, 77%
of fish production is for human consumption; the remainder is used
for non-food production, mostly in the fishmeal and fish oil industries
and for livestock feed.

In 2006, the average global per capita fish production
was 3.3 tons per year. Some regions, however, had per capita production
rates well above that. Europe and Oceania reported per capita output
at 21.4 and 25.1 tons per year respectively. While Asia only produced
2.5 tons per year per person, it does contain 85.8% of the world’s
fishers and fish farmers. In stark contrast, Europe and Oceania only
have 1.7 and 0.1% of the world’s fishers and fish farmers.

Global per capita fish consumption has been increasing
steadily from an average of 9.9kg in the 1960s to an average of 14.4kg
in the 1990s and 17.1kg in 2009. Fish provided about 7.6% of the animal
protein consumed by humans in North and Central America, more than
11% in Europe, 19% in Africa, and 21% in Asia.

Rising incomes, improved infrastructure, and diversification
in diets are pushing developing countries toward significantly higher
fish product consumption. In many small island developing nations
and coastal countries, such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Ghana, fish
supply at least 50% of the total animal protein intake. Fish and fishmeal
also provide a crucial and cheap source of animal protein and micronutrients
for HIV/AIDS patients in developing countries. Source

UN conference tackles overfishingNEW YORK, 24 May 2010 (UN News) -- A five-day conference on fish
conservation opened at United Nations Headquarters in New York today
amid warnings that three quarters of the world’s fish stocks
are in distress and nearing depletion while marine ecosystems continue
to deteriorate.

Conference chairman David Balton, United States Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Oceans and Fisheries in the Bureau of Oceans,
cited overfishing, the effect of fishing on the marine environment
and the need for further assistance to developing countries as among
the forum’s main issues.

The conference is reviewing implementation of the
1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement that established a legal regime for
long-term conservation and sustainable use of straddling and highly
migratory fish stocks. It will provide an opportunity for countries
to consider new measures to tighten implementation of the legal regime.

The agreement, which took effect in 2001 and has
77 States parties, covers highly migratory species that regularly
travel long distances, such as tuna, swordfish and oceanic sharks,
as well as straddling stocks that occur both within the exclusive
economic zone of coastal States – up to 200 nautical miles offshore
– and areas beyond and adjacent to that zone, including cod,
halibut, pollock, jack mackerel and squid. Full
story

Writing in the journal Science, they say that
up to 26m tons of fish, worth an estimated USD23bn (£16bn),
are landed illegally each year. They add that a global monitoring
and information sharing network is needed to crack down on illegal
operators.

Eighty percent of the world's fish stocks are deemed
to be fully or overexploited.

"Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing
is a global problem and it needs a global answer," said co-author
Kristin von Kistowski, a senior adviser to the Pew Environment Group,
a US-based think tank. "By creating this first comprehensive
overview of port state performance, we have identified the weaknesses
and problem in the system."

Under the UN's Convention on the Law of the Sea,
the control of a vessel's activities is the responsibility of the
"flag state", the nation where the boat is registered. But
in November 2009, in an effort to strengthen measures to tackle IUU
fishing, the UN approved a legally binding Port State Measures Agreement
(PSMA) that would require the "port state" to close its
ports and ban the landing of fish of any vessel listed as being involved
in illegal or unregulated activities.

To date, 15 nations and the EU have adopted the PSMA
-- 25 nations (the EU counts as one nation in this case) need to ratify
the agreement in order for it to take effect.

The research highlighted three key concerns:

Insufficient vessel information - only one third
of the vessels on the IUU list could be tracked over the six-year
period reviewed by the study

Lack of compliance - port states only fulfilled
their obligation in one out of four cases

Regional focus - IUU listed vessels simply landed
their fish in ports where strict observance of the measures was
not in place. Full
story

90% of global fish stock of large
fish gone8 Jun 2010 (UN News) -- The world had already consumed 90% of
the global stock of large fish on the high seas — a third of
it caught by illegal, unregulated and unreported vessels, according
to marine experts and legal scholars who spoke at a United Nations
press conference today as the United Nations kicked off the second
annual World Oceans Day.

They said the rest of the fish could disappear by
mid-century, threatening the well-being of oceans and humans alike,
warning that, unless humankind reversed course soon, it could be too
late. “The actions that will be taken, starting now, for
the next 10 years, may be the most important in the next 10,000
years,” said Sylvia Earle, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence
and Adviser to Disneynature on the film Oceans.

The Disneynature production, screened at Headquarters
at 6 p.m. tonight, aims to raise public awareness about the need
to better protect the sea. Also tonight, New York City’s
Empire State Building was to be lit up in white, blue and purple to
signify the entirety of the oceans, from the shallows to the darker
depths. “Anything we care about — our economies,
our health, our security, life itself — depends on the fact
that this is a blue planet,” Earle said. “It’s
our responsibility as never before to enable the ocean to prosper.”

Humans had eaten not only 90 per cent of large
fish, but also smaller species like tuna, swordfish, shark and herring,
while dumping ever-increasing quantities of plastics and other garbage
into the seas. This has altered the seas in ways that scientists
could not keep pace with, having merely scratched the surface of marine
exploration, understanding and conservation, Earle said. Ignorance
and complacency were a big part of the problem, she added. “There
are a lot of people who still think it’s okay to put into the
ocean whatever we want to, that it will be all right, and to take
out of the ocean, without limit.”

Earle said people could contribute on the basis of
individual capacity, from legal experts working to enact and enforce
rules to schoolchildren tapping into the consciences of policymakers
and societies through letter-writing to curb the overfishing of tuna,
swordfish and shark and to support protected areas. Full
story

Delegates meet to discuss better
implementation of UN ocean treatyNEW YORK, 21 Jun 2010 -- Delegates gathered at United Nations
Headquarters in New York today to explore ways of improving the implementation
of a global treaty aimed at protecting oceans and the resources they
hold from a range of threats, including pollution, climate change,
illegal fishing and crimes.

Experts attending the five-day meeting of the UN
Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea will
assess the needs for national and regional capacity-building as they
seek to come up with the appropriate knowledge to help states protect
oceans in accordance with the provisions of the UN Law of the Sea
Convention.

In his report to the General Assembly on oceans and
the law of the sea, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pointed out that
because seas are interconnected, assistance intended to strengthen
capacities to manage ocean-related activities can ultimately benefit
all States. He noted that effective protection of oceans continued
to be hampered by capacity limitations, especially in developing countries.

“These limitations and challenges may constrain
the potential for states, in particular developing countries, especially
the least developed among them and the small island developing states,
to benefit from oceans and seas and their resources pursuant to the
UN Convention on the Law of the Sea,” the Secretary-General
said in his report. Full
story

Migratory species face disaster
from climate change, UN-backed report warnsNEW YORK, 24 Jun 2010 -- Migratory species face disaster from
the effects of climate change unless urgent action is taken, according
to the preliminary findings of a forthcoming United Nations-backed
report.

“Increasing temperatures, changes in precipitation,
sea level rise, ocean acidification, changes in ocean currents and
extreme weather events will all affect migratory species populations,”
said Aylin McNamara, who led the research project at the Zoological
Society of London.

“It's hard to see how any of these species
will be able to survive” under the current “business as
usual” approach to controlling greenhouse emissions, she said.
“I'm afraid that's how serious the situation is.”

International efforts for species conservation across
national borders and to mitigate climate change are imperative, McNamara
added. “These vulnerability assessments show us the likely order
in which these species will become extinct” if such action is
not taken.

Loggerhead turtles, for example, face the loss of
suitable beaches for nesting due to sea-level rise, while a rise in
temperature could cause the entire male population of a species to
be eradicated. Green turtles, hawksbill turtles and leatherback turtles
are also at high risk from climate change, along with the blue whale,
West African manatee and giant catfish.

“Migratory species are particularly threatened
by climate change as they depend on different habitats to breed, feed
and rest,” the executive secretary of the Convention’s
Secretariat, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, said. Full
story

Tuna industry urged to regulate
by-catch24 Jun 2010 (N Eckersley) -- The tuna industry is being urged
by the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation to regulate
by-catch -- the capture of undersized specimens and fish other than
tuna -- to increase fishery sustainability.

The ISSF, a global partnership between scientists,
the tuna industry and WWF, is urging RFMOs to adopt uniform best practices
consistent with the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement to reduce
the amount of non-target animals such as sharks, turtles and small
tuna incidentally taken during tuna fishing.

Best practice would require members to collect and
report fishery data on bycatch, disseminate that data, evaluate the
impact of tuna fisheries on by-catch species and encourage ecosystems
research; adopt measures that minimize waste; and adopt measures to
mitigate by-catch.

“Adopting these best practices would be a never-before-seen
level of progress,” ISSF President Susan Jackson said. “This
kind of uniformity among RFMOs would bring us much closer to a comprehensive,
global approach to tackling by-catch issues in tuna fisheries.”
Full
story

UN bares plan to create new body
for ecosystems and biodiversityA gathering of 85 member countries of the UN has set in the motion
plans to create an international body for monitoring the state of
global biodiversity. It is hoped that the proposed ‘Intergovernmental
Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’
(IPBES) will unite and streamline biodiversity research and monitoring
from countries around the globe.

The overall role of the IPBES will be to conduct
periodic assessments of Earth’s biodiversity and ‘ecosystem
services’. These include ecosystems outputs such as fresh water,
fish, game and timber as well as the stability or otherwise of the
climate. These assessments will be used to answer questions about
how much biodiversity is declining and what the implications of extinctions
and ecosystem change might be for humanity.

The actual scope of the body will be much larger,
with a focus on uniting research groups around the world and increasing
knowledge and resource sharing. The IPBES will help to train environmental
scientists in the developing world, both with a budget of its own
and by alerting funders to gaps in global expertise. The organization
will also identify gaps in research and highlight tools, such as models,
for policy-makers looking to apply a scientific approach to decisions
on issues such as land management.

The IPBES will operate along similar lines as the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Although the latter has
come in for some criticism lately over dubiously apocalyptic claims
about the Himalayan glaciers, there is no doubting the good work it
as done for research into Climate Change.

Anne Larigauderie, executive director of Paris-based
Diversitas, a facilitator for biodiversity science, says that the
IPBES could turn the “fragmented” field of biodiversity
research into a more coordinated “common enterprise” that
will lead to better models of future biodiversity changes. Full
story

Independent UN expert urges legal
reforms to boost right to food14 May 2010 (UN News) – The right to food has gained significant
recognition in Africa, Asia, Latin America and South Asia, but more
national institutional reforms are needed to ensure that the fight
against hunger is rooted in legal mechanisms, a United Nations expert
has said.

"Boosting food production should not be confused
with realizing the human right to food," said Olivier De Schutter,
the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food. "If the international
community is willing to reinvest in agriculture, the real question
today is not "how much," but "how,"" he stated
in a briefing note released today.

"We tend to forget that in the fight against
hunger, processes and institutions are as vital as new seeds; legal
frameworks as necessary as agricultural investments; and participatory
institutions as impactful in the long term as bags of fertilizers,"
De Schutter said in his review of progress made by countries in implementing
the human right to food at the national level.

"It [right to food] has an influence on some
land or fishing policies, on coordination among ministries, and the
use of public resources. These are key steps for lasting progress,
and they are totally different from the classic recipe of increasing
food production," he added.

The review gives several examples of successful initiatives
that have upheld the right to food.

In South Africa, traditional fishermen went to court
after they lost their fishing rights due to new governmental fisheries
policies. In 2007 the Government and the fishermen agreed to an order
by the South African Equality Court requiring both parties to develop
a new policy and legislative framework to accommodate and recognize
the socio-economic rights and the right to equitable marine resources
of traditional fishermen. Full
story

Business leaders increasingly
worried about biodiversity loss – UN-backed reportNEW YORK, 13 Jul 2010 (UN News) -- One in four corporate titans
worldwide views biodiversity loss as a threat to their business growth,
according to a new United Nations-backed study released today.

The study found that more than half of chief executive
officers surveyed in Latin America and 45% of their counterparts in
Africa see biodiversity decline as detrimental to profits, compared
to less than 20% in Western Europe.

The publication also found that business leaders
who do not include the sustainable management of ‘natural capital’
as part of their strategies may be at a disadvantage in the global
market.

“Through the work of the TEEB and others, the
economic importance of biodiversity and ecosystems is emerging from
the invisible into the visible spectrum,” said Pavan Sukhdev,
TEEB Study Leader and head of UNEP’s Green Economy initiative.

The new report points to multinational mining giant
Rio Tinto as one company that has committed itself to having a so-called
“Net Positive Impact” on biodiversity, developing new
methods of assessing the biodiversity values of its landholdings.
It has also started to apply biodiversity compensation in Madagascar,
Australia and other countries.

Coca Cola, Walmart and BC Hydro are among corporations
with similar commitments on softening biodiversity loss. Full
story

Industry fishing for profits,
not predators24 Jun 2010 (S Hines/PhysOrg.com) -- People who fish for a living
pursue top profits, not necessarily top predators, according to the
first-ever analysis of worldwide catch and economic data for the past
55 years.

This differs from the observation raised 10 years
ago that humans were "fishing down" the food web. It was
assumed that catches of the predators at the top of the food chain,
such as halibut and tuna, were declining after fishers started landing
more fish from lower on the food chain, such as herring and anchovies.

The idea was that people had targeted fish at top
of the food web causing declines that forced harvests of fish at ever
lower "trophic levels" in the food web. Proponent of the
idea at the time wrote, "If we don't manage this resource, we
will be left with a diet of jellyfish and plankton stew."

Fishing down the food web has been debated by biologists
and fisheries managers since the idea emerged. However, some in the
news media, as well as a number of conservation groups and individuals,
accepted the hypothesis without question, according to Suresh Sethi,
a University of Washington doctoral student in aquatic and fishery
sciences.

"We wanted to examine why fishermen might be
motivated to preferentially harvest different trophic levels and our
data showed that fishing down the food web -- by moving from higher
to lower value species -- is an incomplete story of the evolution
of global fishery development," says Sethi, lead author of a
paper on the subject published this week in the early edition of the
Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences. "We found no
evidence that humans first developed commercial fisheries on top predators
then sequentially moved to species lower in the food web since the
1950s. Instead, those who fish for a living have pursued high revenue
fisheries, no matter what the trophic level of the species."

It's important to know what motivates those who fish
for a living as nations move toward ecosystem-based management, Sethi
says. "Attributes related to economic opportunity will be important
for understanding which species are susceptible to new fishery development
or expansion of existing harvest when costs and benefits are altered,
for example, through government subsidies," the paper says.

The new research considers the assumption that fish
at the top of the food web are targeted because they have the most
economic value. Some do, but many don't.

Take price. The authors divided fisheries into three
groups and used a worldwide economic database to find that average
prices for the lowest trophic levels, which includes pricey shellfish
such as shrimp and abalone, were 25% higher overall than fish at the
highest trophic level. Prices for the lowest level were 45% higher
than for the middle group, which includes fish like herring.

In the drive to catch fish with the best economic
value, species that are super abundant present some of the best opportunities.
Alaska pollock, for example, are caught in great quantities in the
Bering Sea and are a very valuable fishery even though the fish is
inexpensive to buy and not high on the food web. Similarly, species
found in shallower water were targeted first because they are less
expensive to catch and therefore profitable even if they don't fetch
top prices, the researchers said. The fishing industry also preferred
larger-body fish that can be made into more kinds of products, some
with higher values. Full
story

Protected corals increase fishing
profitsNAIROBI, Kenya, 13 May 2010 (EurekaAlert) –The Wildlife
Conservation Society today announced findings from a study showing
that closures and gear restrictions implemented in fishing areas can
increase fishery revenue and net profits. The landmark findings, presented
today at the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical, and Technological
Advice of the Convention on Biological Diversity held in Nairobi,
Kenya, will help usher in a new era of acceptance for fishery management
solutions that provide for local communities while protecting the
world's priority seascapes.

The extensive 12-year study recorded information
on 27,000 fish caught within three fishery locations on Kenya's coast:
one abutting an area closed to fishing; a second located far from
the closure area and with restrictions on seine nets in place; and
a third open to fishing without restrictions and located far from
closure areas. In the first area, results showed that fish migrating
into the fishery from the closure area included more preferred species,
as well as larger fish. These fish commanded higher prices per pound.
The surprising effect of the closure was an increase in revenue to
the fishers. Further, the study found that restrictions on the use
of seine nets in the second area also increased fishery revenue.

"Resistance to closures and gear restrictions
from fishers and the fishing industry is based largely on the perception
that these options are a threat to profits. These findings challenge
those perceptions." said author Tim McClanahan, Wildlife Conservation
Society Senior Conservationist. “By showing that prized species
and larger fish are entering fisheries indirectly through the closures,
we see that closures are a direct benefit to the fishers." Full
story

Scientists offer new take on selective
fishing29 Apr 2010 (CSIRO) -- A new, less selective approach to commercial
fishing is needed to ensure the ongoing productivity of marine ecosystems
and to maintain biodiversity, according to a paper in the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Zhou says ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM)
is broadly practiced as a means of reducing the impact of fishing
on marine ecosystems while ensuring sustainable fisheries.

He says fishing methods under EBFM vary greatly in
how selectively they catch fish. The common view is that highly selective
methods that catch only one or a few species above a certain size
limit are more environmentally responsible.

But recent advances in fishery science and ecology
suggest a selective approach may exacerbate rather than reduce the
impact of fishing on both fisheries and marine ecosystems.

“Selective fishing alters biodiversity, which
in turn changes ecosystem functioning and may affect fisheries production,
hindering rather than helping to achieve the goals of EBFM,”
Dr Zhou says. “These effects have been overshadowed to some
extent by a focus on overharvesting. We believe it is time to critically
rethink traditional selective fishing approaches that might not protect
ecosystems and fisheries as intended, but may in fact make them more
vulnerable to large changes in structure and function.”

Zhou and his co-authors propose a “balanced
exploitation” approach combining reduced fishing effort, less
selective fishing strategies, and better use of the catch to help
achieve sustainable overall yields while maintaining healthy ecosystems.

“The trade-off is lower exploitation levels
on currently highly targeted species against better use of more parts
of the ecosystem,” Zhou says. “Fisheries production could
actually increase through better use of non-target species, while
reducing unsustainably high catches of target species, thereby helping
to meet the challenge of increasing global food demand.”

Zhou says the implications of such a change in approach
would need to be considered by a wide range of stakeholders including
fishermen, fishery managers and conservation agencies. Source

Small sea snail damaging world’s
coral reefs28 May 2010 (Victoria University) -- Victoria University research
has found that a small sea snail may be causing significant damage
to coral reefs in the Pacific, even more so than climate change or
coral bleaching.

Dr Jeff Shima, a Senior Lecturer in Marine Ecology
and Director of Victoria’s Coastal Ecology Laboratory, has studied
the worm snail Dendropoma maximum in the field at Moorea, French Polynesia.

"Our research looks at the effects of this often
overlooked ‘zoological oddity.’ It’s incredible
that such a small snail can have such a significant impact. The adverse
effects of this largely unstudied snail on coral reefs rival and exceed
those of coral bleaching, climate change and human impacts. This small
snail may be having a catastrophic impact."

The worm snails reduced skeletal growth of certain
corals by up to 81% and halved their survival rate. Susceptibility
to damage varied among coral species.

Similar patterns of devastation have been recorded
in other areas, such as the Red Sea. The snail is common in the Pacific
and seems to be becoming more widespread. Full
story

Researchers find first proof that
chemicals from seaweeds damage coral on contact12 May 2010 (ScienceDaily) — Field studies have shown for
the first time that several common species of seaweeds in both the
Pacific and Caribbean Oceans can kill corals upon contact using chemical
means.

While competition between seaweed and coral is just
one of many factors affecting the decline of coral reefs worldwide,
this chemical threat may provide a serious setback to efforts aimed
at repopulating damaged reefs. Seaweeds are normally kept in check
by herbivorous fish, but in many areas overfishing has reduced the
populations of these plant-consumers, allowing seaweeds to overpopulate
coral reefs.

A study documenting the chemical effects of seaweeds
on corals was scheduled to be published May 10, 2010 in the early
edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
(PNAS). The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health,
the National Science Foundation, and the Teasely Endowments at the
Georgia Institute of Technology.

"Between 40% and 70% of the seaweeds we studied
killed corals," said Mark Hay, a professor in the School of Biology
at Georgia Tech. "We don't know how significant this is compared
to other problems affecting coral, but we know this is a growing problem.
For reefs that have been battered by human use or overfishing, the
presence of seaweeds may prevent natural recovery from happening at
all."

Coral reefs are declining worldwide, and scientists
studying the problem had suspected that proliferation of seaweed was
part of the cause -- perhaps by crowding out the coral or by damaging
it physically.

Using racks of coral being transplanted as part of
repopulation efforts, Hay and graduate student Douglas Rasher compared
the fate of corals from two different species when they were placed
next to different types of seaweed common around Fijian reefs in the
Pacific -- and Panamanian reefs in Caribbean. They planted the seaweeds
next to coral being transplanted -- and also placed plastic plants
next to some of the coral to simulate the effects of shading and mechanical
damage. Other coral in the racks had neither seaweeds nor plastic
plants near them.

The researchers revisited the coral two days, 10
days and 20 days later. In as little as two days, corals in contact
with some seaweed species bleached and died in areas of direct contact.
In other cases, the effects took a full 20 days to appear -- or for
some seaweed species, no damaging effects were noted during the 20-day
period. Ultimately, as much as 70% of the seaweed species studied
turned out to have harmful effects -- but only when they were in direct
contact with the coral.

To confirm that chemical factors were responsible,
Hay and Rasher extracted chemicals from the seaweeds -- and from only
the surfaces of the seaweeds. They then applied both types of chemicals
to corals by placing the chemicals into gel matrix bound to a strip
of window screen, forming something similar to a gauze bandage and
applying that directly to the corals. To a control group of corals,
they applied the gel and screen without the seaweed chemicals.

The effects confirmed that chemicals from both the
surface of certain seaweeds and extracts from those entire plants
killed corals.

"In all cases where the coral had been harmed,
the chemistry appeared to be responsible for it," said Hay. "The
evolutionary reasons why the seaweeds have these compounds are not
known. It may be that these compounds protect the seaweeds against
microbial infection, or that they help compete with other seaweeds.
But it's clear now that they also harm the corals, either by killing
them or suppressing their growth."

The researchers studied coral of different species
in the Pacific and Caribbean, matching them up against different species
of seaweed common to their geographic areas. The coral species chosen
-- Porites porites in Panama and Porites cylindrica in Fiji -- are
among the hardiest of coral, suggesting that other species may be
even more dramatically affected by the seaweed compounds.

Conducted during 2008 and 2009, the study adds new
information about the decline of reefs worldwide, and reinforces the
importance of maintaining a healthy ecosystem that includes enough
herbivorous fish to keep seaweed under control.

"Removing the herbivorous fishes really sets
up a cascade of effects," said Hay, who holds the Harry and Linda
Teasely Chair in the Georgia Tech School of Biology. "The more
you fish, the more seaweeds there are. The more seaweeds there are,
the more damage is done to the coral. The less coral there is, the
fewer fish will be recruited to an area. If there are fewer fish,
the seaweeds outgrow the coral. It's a downward death spiral that
may be difficult to recover from." Full
story

Improved prawn developed28 Jun 2010 (CSIRO) – Scientists at Australia’s Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and
the prawn industry have bred an improved Black Tiger prawn which is
producing record yields in aquaculture farms and winning awards. So
good are these prawns that they have won five gold medals at the Sydney
Royal Easter Show in the past two years, including ‘Champion
of Show’, the highest award possible.

The scientists from CSIRO's Food Futures Flagship
have used DNA technology to ensure the breeding program captures the
very best Black Tiger prawn stocks that nature can provide and boost
the performance of stocks each breeding season.

With about 50% of all prawns sold in Australia currently
imported from countries such as China and Vietnam, developing an Australian
prawn that breeds in captivity and is completely sustainable is a
major gain for both the local prawn industry and consumers wanting
to buy Australian seafood.

After eight generations of selective breeding, one
of CSIRO's industry partners, Gold Coast Marine Aquaculture, has this
year achieved average yields of 17.5 tons per hectare – more
than double the industry's average production. Several ponds produced
20 tons per hectare and one produced a world record yield of 24.2
tons per hectare.

Leader of the CSIRO Food Futures Flagship prawn research
project, Dr Nigel Preston, said this specially bred prawn has the
potential to revolutionize the local and international prawn farming
industry. Full
story

"Ocean conditions are already more extreme than
those experienced by marine organisms and ecosystems for millions
of years," the researchers say in the latest issue of the journal
Trends in Ecology and Evolution. "This emphasises the urgent
need to adopt policies that drastically reduce CO2 emissions."

Ocean acidification, which the researchers call the
'evil twin of global warming', is caused when the CO2 emitted by human
activity, mainly burning fossil fuels, dissolves into the oceans.
It is happening independently of, but in combination with, global
warming.

"Evidence gathered by scientists around the
world over the last few years suggests that ocean acidification could
represent an equal -- or perhaps even greater threat -- to the biology
of our planet than global warming," co-author Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and The University
of Queensland says.

More than 30% of the CO2 released from burning fossil
fuels, cement production, deforestation and other human activities
goes straight into the oceans, turning them gradually more acidic.

"The resulting acidification will impact many
forms of sea life, especially organisms whose shells or skeletons
are made from calcium carbonate, like corals and shellfish. It may
interfere with the reproduction of plankton species which are a vital
part of the food web on which fish and all other sea life depend,"
he adds.

The scientists say there is now persuasive evidence
that mass extinctions in past Earth history, like the "Great
Dying" of 251 million years ago and another wipe-out 55 million
years ago, were accompanied by ocean acidification, which may have
delivered the deathblow to many species that were unable to cope with
it.

"These past periods can serve as great lessons
of what we can expect in the future, if we continue to push the acidity
the ocean even further" said lead author, Carles Pelejero, from
ICREA and the Marine Science Institute of CSIC in Barcelona, Spain.
"Given the impacts we see in the fossil record, there is no question
about the need to immediately reduce the rate at which we are emitting
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," he said further. Full
story

Carbon emissions threaten fish
populations6 Jul 2010 (ARC COE-CRS) -- Humanity’s rising CO2 emissions
could have a significant impact on the world’s fish populations
according to groundbreaking new research carried out in Australia.

Baby fish may become easy meat for predators as the
world’s oceans become more acidic due to CO2 fallout from human
activity, an international team of researchers has discovered.

In a series of experiments reported in the latest
issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS),
the team found that as carbon levels rise and ocean water acidifies,
the behavior of baby fish changes dramatically – in ways that
decrease their chances of survival by 50 to 80%.

“As CO2 increases in the atmosphere and dissolves
into the oceans, the water becomes slightly more acidic. Eventually
this reaches a point where it significantly changes the sense of smell
and behavior of larval fish,” says team leader Professor Philip
Munday of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence
for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS) at James Cook University. “Instead
of avoiding predators, they become attracted to them. They appear
to lose their natural caution and start taking big risks, such as
swimming out in the open -- with lethal consequences.”

Dr Mark Meekan from the Australian
Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), a co-author on the paper,
says the change in fish behaviour could have serious implications
for the sustainability of fish populations because fewer baby fish
will survive to replenish adult populations. “We already know
this will have an adverse effect on corals, shellfish, plankton and
other organisms with calcified skeletons. Now we are starting to find
it could affect other marine life, such as fish.” Full
story

Mangrove loss outpacing destruction
of land-based forests -- UNNEW YORK, 14 Jul 2010 -- Despite restoration efforts by some countries,
mangroves are being lost at a rate three to four times higher than
land-based forests, with one-fifth of all of the world’s mangroves
thought to have been lost in the past three decades, according to
a new United Nations report.

Mangrove losses have slowed to 0.7% annually, but
the authors of the new atlas – the first global assessment of
mangroves in more than a decade – warn that any further destruction
due to shrimp farming and coastal development will result in significant
economic and ecological declines.

Mangroves – forests straddling land and sea
– are believed to generate up to USD9,000 per hectare, a strong
argument in favour of mangrove management, protection and restoration.

The global area of mangroves, some 150,000 sq km,
is equivalent to the area of Suriname or half of the Philippines.

He noted that 1,200 protected areas are safeguarding
one-quarter of the world’s remaining mangroves while many countries
are embarking on major restorations, “a positive signal upon
which to build and to accelerate a definitive response in 2010, the
UN’s International Year of Biodiversity.”

More than 100 top mangrove researchers and organizations
provided data, reviews and other input for the World Mangrove Atlas,
a joint effort of UNEP, the UN Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and other groups.

“Mangrove forests are the ultimate illustration
of why humans need nature,” said Mark Spalding, lead author
of the publication, which he noted illustrates the “extraordinary
synergies” between people and forests. Source

UN meteorological agency reports
end to El Niño pattern over the PacificNEW YORK, 6 Jul 2010 -- The weather pattern known as El Niño
rapidly dissipated in early May, giving way to the development of
cool, neutral to weak La Niña conditions in the tropical Pacific
Ocean, the United Nations World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported today.

El Niño refers to an abnormal warming of surface
ocean waters in the eastern tropical Pacific, while La Niña
is characterized by unusually cool ocean temperatures in the eastern
equatorial Pacific. Both events can disrupt the normal patterns of
tropical precipitation and atmospheric circulation, and have widespread
impacts on climate in many parts of the world.

The prevailing conditions are more likely than not
to strengthen into a basin-wide La Niña over the coming months,
according to the El Niño/La Niña update issued by WMO.

By mid-June, the sea-surface temperatures had decreased
to approximately 0.5 degrees Celsius below normal over the central
and eastern equatorial Pacific, near the borderline of La Niña
conditions.

Further, below average sea temperatures exist beneath
the surface of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. Forecast
models continue to predict further decreases in the central and eastern
Equatorial Pacific sea-surface temperature. In particular, most dynamic
models strongly favor further La Niña development, according
to WMO.

While it is likely that La Niña conditions
will further develop in the next several months, the timing and magnitude
of such an event in 2010 are as yet uncertain, with no indications
at this time of a particularly strong event in terms of sea-surface
temperatures.

The unusual climate patterns and extremes that occur
in association with La Niña conditions also occur independently
of La Niña, and therefore individual users of climate information
should seek detailed interpretation for their locations and sectors,
WMO said in the update. Full
story

Experts advise countries to look
beyond "cost-benefit" analysis in climate change adaptationJOHANNESBURG, 6 July (IRIN) - You can put a price tag on the cost
of building a dyke to protect people from sea-level rise brought on
by climate change, but not on how they will benefit from it, say the
co-authors of a new paper calling on countries not to restrict themselves
to cost-benefit analysis.

Co-authors Rachel Berger, a climate change policy
advisor to Practical Action, an international development charity,
and Muyeye Chambwera, a researcher at the UK-based International Institute
for Environment Development, said they were prompted to write their
paper because countries were in danger of focusing exclusively on
the cost-benefit analysis approach.

Quantitative cost-benefit analysis is "information-intensive,"
making it expensive to use in small-scale projects, so planners at
community level usually do not use it. Besides, "Some development
NGOs take the view that the local people should usually decide themselves
what they want to invest in, using their own criteria," said
Berger and Chambwera.

"Most climate change adaptation cost reports
produced recently have used the cost-benefit analysis tool,"
Chambwera noted. What set their alarm bells ringing was the agenda
of a recent workshop organized by the Nairobi Work Programme (NWP)
on how to use cost-benefit methods for adaptation planning at country
and community levels.

The NWP was set up in 2005 under the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change to help developing countries understand
and assess the impact of climate change and help them adapt.

Berger and Chambwera's paper had raised "crucial
issues to get us beyond mindless 'plug-and-chug' approaches to using
cost-benefit analysis to try to make crucial decisions about whether
to take certain actions to adapt to climate change," said J.
Timmons Roberts, Director of the Center for Environmental Studies
at Brown University, in the US. "The problem is that in our society
the language with the most weight is that of money, so there will
always be pressure to reduce the complexity of decision-making to
tallying up the costs and benefits in some oversimplified currency
metric."

Roberts, who has produced key research on the role
of foreign aid in addressing climate justice issues, commented: "The
key to me is that for each adaptation action, or non-action, different
people reap the benefits from those who bear the costs. For this reason,
cost-benefit analysis is indeed nearly useless at the local or even
national level."

Chambwera and Berger said they were not discounting
cost-benefit analysis, which has its benefits an international scale,
and cited the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, produced
by economist Nicholas Stern for the British government.

The "Stern Review's finding that the cost of
inaction on climate change is 20 times higher than the cost of action
has stimulated international policies, leading to local action around
the world," they pointed out. But when countries drew up adaptation
programmes they would have to be "informed by other factors,
such as risk assessment, and not just by costs and benefits."
Full
story

UN and Oxford University unveil
new index to measure povertyNEW YORK, 14 Jul 2010 -- The United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Oxford University
today launched a new index to measure poverty levels which they said
give a “multidimensional” picture of people living in
hardship, and could help target development resources more effectively.

The new measure, the Multidimensional Poverty Index,
or MPI, was developed and applied by the Oxford Poverty and Human
Development Initiative (OPHI) with UNDP support, the two institutions
said in a joint press release.

It will be featured in the forthcoming 20th anniversary
edition of the UNDP Human Development Report, and replaces the Human
Poverty Index, which had been included in these reports since 1997.

This year’s Human Development Report will be
published in late October, but research findings from the MPI were
made available today at a policy forum in London and on line on the
websites of OPHI
and the UNDP Human
Development Report.

The MPI assesses a range of critical factors or “deprivations”
at the household level: from education to health outcomes to assets
and services. Taken together, these factors provide a fuller portrait
of acute poverty than simple income measures, according to OPHI and
UNDP.

The measure reveals the nature and extent of poverty
at different levels: from household up to regional, national and international
levels. The multidimensional approach to assessing poverty has been
adapted for national use in Mexico, and is now being considered by
Chile and Colombia. Full
story

Asian nations leading the way
in “green economic stimulus packages – UNNEW YORK, 30 May 2010 -- Asian nations, particularly China and
the Republic of Korea, are surging ahead of other major world economies
with ‘green’ investments as a major part of their economic
and employment recovery packages, according to a new book co-published
by the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP).

“The financial and economic crisis triggered
a fundamental awareness that investments in the environment may be
the key to tackling multiple challenges from climate change and food
shortages to natural resource scarcity and unemployment,” says
UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

He adds that the book, entitled A Global Green
New Deal: Rethinking the Economic Recovery, underlines that while
some economies have seized this opportunity, others have not. “With
the exception of several Asian economies, there remains a gap between
ambition and action,” he notes.

Authored by Edward Barbier, a leading economist and
consultant to UNEP’s Global Green New Deal/Green Economy Initiative,
the book notes that China spends more than a third of its stimulus
package – equal to 3% of its gross domestic product (GDP) –
on areas such as high-speed rail and boosting growth in wind and solar
power and energy-efficient lighting.

The country is already the leading global producer
of solar cells, wind turbines and solar water heaters, with its renewable
energy sector valued at $17 billion and which employs close to 1 million
people or 0.1% of the working population.

The Republic of Korea, for its part, is allocating
95% of its fiscal stimulus – 3% of GDP – into environmental
sectors including low-emission vehicles, the publication points out.
As part of its five-year green-growth investment plan, the country
plans to spend $60 billion to cut carbon dependency with the aim of
boosting economic growth to 2020 and generating up to 1.8 million
jobs.

This is in contrast to the United States green stimulus,
which represents only 0.7% of GDP, and that of the European Union,
which stands at 0.2% of GDP.

“With China and South Korea leading the way
in environmental investments, other G20 countries [a group of the
major economies which accounts for two-thirds of the world’s
population] must unite to promote a sustainable global economic recovery
both through fiscal stimulus and long-term policy implementation,”
says Barbier, an economics professor who is based at the University
of Wyoming in the US.

“Indeed without a long-term vision on how to
further catalyse and embed the environment within the economy, there
is a real danger that many of the G20’s green stimuli will wither
and simply go to waste,” he adds.

Barbier estimates that of the $3 trillion spent or
earmarked globally for fiscal stimulus, just over $460 billion is
aimed at green investments – around 15% of the total fiscal
stimulus or around 0.7% of the G20’s GDP.

China and the Republic of Korea lead the way at 3%
of GDP, followed by Saudi Arabia, 1.7%; Australia, 1.2% and Japan,
0.8%. Full
story

Abu Dhabi to farm bluefin tuna
soonABU DHABI, 5 May 2010 (R Absal/gulfnews.com/EAD)-- The Abu Dhabi
government hopes to soon begin bluefin tuna culture, using advanced
technological support from a top Japanese university, officials disclosed
yesterday.

The Environment Agency of Abu Dhabi (EAD) inked an
agreement with Japan's Kinki University to cooperate in the fields
of aqua culture research and development. A feasibility study on setting
up a farm using closed re-circulating aquaculture systems will be
prepared in September, with hopes of launching a pilot project, officials
told Gulf News.

While technological aspects and expertise will be
the responsibility of the university, EAD will be in charge of the
logistical and financial aspects of the project.

The Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus),
also known as the northern bluefin tuna, giant bluefin tuna (for larger
individuals exceeding 150kg or 300 pounds) and formerly as the tunny,
is a species of tuna native to both the western and eastern Atlantic
Ocean, as well as the Mediterranean Sea. The species, a close relative
of the Pacific bluefin tuna and the southern bluefin tuna, has been
recorded in the Black Sea in the past, but is now believed to be extinct
there. Full
story

Recent surveys conducted by the EWS-WWF have shown
that 66% of the UAE population eat fish at least once a week. The
high demand for seafood is putting an increasing pressure on the fish
stock, resulting in a noticeable decline of about 80% over the last
3 decades. Hamour, a highly favoured fish in the UAE, is being overfished
7 times beyond its sustainable level, with a decline of 87-92% since
1978, putting it at the top of the overfished species list.

Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, Managing Director of EWS
said: "We bring this campaign to the residents of the UAE to
empower them with consumer information about the status of valuable
local species and inspire them to Choose Wisely."

A wallet size consumer guide has been developed with
the support of Environment Agency- Abu Dhabi (EAD), classifying 19
popular fish types into 3 categories, based on stock assessment studies
that have been carried out by scientists at EAD. The guide assigns
a colour to each of those categories; red distinguishing overfished
types that include many of the popularly consumed fish, such as Shaari,
Kanaad, Farsh, and Hamour, and orange and green to indicate less exploited
species.

The guide is available in print from EWS -WWF offices
and can also be accessed and downloaded from the campaign's website<www.choosewisely.ae>.
For those who enjoy cooking, a database of recipes based on sustainably
fished species is also available at www.choosewisely.ae. The campaign
has also launched a 5-month "Sustainable Fish Dish" challenge,
encouraging people to come up with recipes for sustainable fish. Details
of the challenge can be found on the campaign website. Full
story

Study suggests decline in UK fish
stocks more severe than thought4 May 2010 (C Davies/guardian.co.uk) -- The United Kingdom's modern
fishing fleet must work 17 times harder for the same catch as their
sail-powered Victorian counterparts, a study has claimed, suggesting
the decline in fish stocks is more profound than previously thought.

Records of fish landings dating back to the 1880s
showed UK trawlers – then fishing closer to port – landed
twice as much fish in 1889 as today, despite advances enabling crews
to fish further, faster and deeper. Researchers say the results indicate
technological developments and the exploitation of new fishing grounds
have served to mask the "extraordinary" decline of fish
in British waters.

In England and Wales, 19th century fishermen were
landing four times as much as today.

In 1937, at the peak of the UK's fishing industry,
the catch was 14 times what it is now, the study, by the University
of York and the Marine Conservation Society, said. The availability
of bottom-living fish has since fallen by 94%.

Examining previously overlooked government records,
researchers calculated the "landings of fish per unit of fishing
power" (LPUP) by comparing the effort trawling vessels put in
with the amount they caught to assess the availability of fish. The
crash has been huge for some species. From 1889 to 2007, the LPUP
declined 500 times for halibut, more than 100 times for haddock, and
more than 20 times for plaice, wolffish, hake and ling. Cod had declined
by 87%, the study, published by the online science journal Nature
Communications, found.

The figures indicated fish stocks were in decline
well before the amount of fish being caught went "catastrophically
downhill" in the 1960s, the study's authors said. They called
for much stronger reform of the EU common fisheries policy to allow
for recovery of fisheries in the seas around the British Isles. Full
story

Major US fishery takes a beating
after oil spillNEW ORLEANS, 13 May 2010 (A Ogle/AFP) — One of the biggest
victims of the huge oil spill slamming Louisiana's economy is the
region's largest fishery, which has seen its catch drop 50% at a critical
time in the season.

Three weeks into the six-month fishing season, the
Gulf of Mexico oil slick has made a "just dreadful" impact
on the industry, said Daybrook Fisheries president Gregory Holt. He
described his business as the region's "economic generator"
as far as fisheries are concerned.

"We've lost 50% of our fishing grounds, and
it means we're around 50% down in our normal catch," Holt said.

He noted the "extensive" costs of operating
in areas still open for fishing, with 20-hour round-trips now the
norm for fishing boats heading west from the mouth of the Mississippi
River into the gulf.

Last week, Louisiana state officials banned fishing
in large expanses of coastal waters for at least 10 days amid fears
oil could contaminate the catch. While a small area has been reopened,
the growing slick -- a "nightmare," in Holt's words -- looks
set to disrupt business for some time to come.

An estimated 210,000 gallons of crude are spewing
each day from a leaking mile-deep (1,500 meters) pipe in the Gulf
of Mexico, ruptured by an April 20 explosion that rocked a BP-leased
rig before it caught fire and sank, claiming the lives of 11 workers.
Full
story

EU rejecting less Asian seafood10 May 2010 (fishupdate.com) – The European Union is rejecting
much less fish and seafood from South East Asia than a year ago, according
to reports from the region.

Less than half of Malaysian seafood exporters barred
from selling to Europe in 2008 have complied with the rules and resumed
exports, said the European Union ambassador Vincent Piket. Out of
the 26 companies disallowed, only five are back on the list and
another two in the process of being re-listed, he said.

Since the ban, the industry had focused on ensuring
the biggest exporters complied with EU health standards first.

In June 2008, the Malaysian government voluntarily
decided to temporarily freeze exports of aquaculture products to the
EU after exporters failed to meet health standards. It forced some
seafood processors to appeal to the state government for help as they
have been severely hit by the ban.

And from India come reports that the number of rejections
of Indian shrimp (scampi) by the European Union has fallen drastically
after the modalities of testing the exports for the banned antibiotic
nitrofuran were modified last September. Full
story

Argentina’s commercial hake
fishery has “two years left”5 Jun 2010 (Mercopress) -- Over the last 20 years, abundance of
common hake (Merluccius hubbsi) has declined 80% in the Southwest
Atlantic as a result of overfishing, claims Argentina’s Fundación
Vida Silvestre, Wild Life Foundation, (FVSA).

The NGO also warns that currently 61% of hake catches
is Argentina are made up of juveniles, a trend that if allowed to
continue would lead to the collapse of the fishery in less than two
years’ time.

For this reason, FVSA has launched a campaign urging
Argentine consumers to only buy hake fillets of more than 25 cm in
length.

FVSA also is critical of the latest measures announced
by the Argentine government and the lack of control over the fleet
targeting shrimp (Pleoticus muelleri), which discards hundreds of
tons of juvenile hake during that activity in the South Atlantic.

“Boats that catch shrimp in the San Jorge gulf
annually discard between 40,000 and 50,000 tons of hake which do not
appear in the statistics” underlines Guillermo Cañete,
coordinator of the Marine Programme and a FVSA fisheries scientist.
”Fishing specimens that do not reach 34 cm in length are a phenomenal
waste of biological production and reproductive capital.”

As to the future and the outlook for the industry,
Cañete anticipates that “fish are not going to disappear,
but rather the fishermen, because if the resource descends beyond
a certain level, the activity simply turns non profitable.”

Hake which is Argentina’s main seafood resource
represented 40% of total seafood landings in 2007, a third of the
country’s exports and 60% of the industry’s jobs. Full
story

So far this year Taiwan has caught 1,141 bluefin,
representing a 60% drop compared with the catch of 2,821 in the same
period of last year, Fisheries Agency Director-General James Sah said.

At the Donggang fish market in Pingtung County --
Taiwan's main port for tuna -- fishermen have only landed 795 bluefin
so far, less than half of the 2,132 landed in the same period of 2009,
he added.

The wholesale price of the fish tripled from the
NT$200 to NT$300 (USD9.3) per kilo it fetched in 2009 to between NT$600
and NT$800 this year in Taiwan, Sha noted. Full
story

First US-Indonesia ocean exploration
agreement signed26 May 2010 (US-CTI) -- US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, together
with scientists and experts from the U.S. National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), visited Muara
Baru, a commercial fishing port in North Jakarta to oversee the signing
of the first-ever US-Indonesia ocean exploration agreement and to
address joint efforts to prevent illegal and unregulated fishing.

These “extraordinary natural resources,”
said Locke, “sustain the lives of hundreds of millions of people
living in this region and benefit many millions more worldwide. The
health of the environment and health of the economy go hand-in-hand,
and the United States is committed to actively partnering with the
Republic of Indonesia on issues of vast importance to our two nations,
Southeast Asia, and the planet itself.”

Through the US Coral Triangle Initiative Support
Program and other efforts, NOAA, the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID) and partners
are working together with Indonesia and Coral Triangle countries to
strengthen enforcement and sustainable management of fisheries and
conservation of the marine environment and coral reefs.

Members of the Gaza’s Fishers Union gathered
at the headquarters, where Union chief Saed Zyadeh led the meeting.
He encouraged members to express their problems, compiled suggested
solutions, and assured his audience he would bring the issues to local
officials and human rights organizations.

By far the largest grievances held by Gaza fishermen
flow from the limitations enforced on them by the Israeli military.
As part of an Israeli-enforced blockade, intensified following the
2007 Hamas take-over of the Strip, fishing boats cannot venture more
than three miles beyond the coast. Many fishermen say the restrictions
leave them with their nets lightened and the waters overfished. Many
take the risk and sail to deeper waters for their catch, but this
often leads to confrontations with Israeli forces and confiscation
of their boats.

Many fishermen, facing lighter catches and decimated
incomes, have had to turn to fish farms, a BBC report showed earlier
this year. But even this entrepreneurial effort faces difficulties
under the blockade, which makes it difficult to import much of the
needed technology. Full
story

Israel bars fishing in Sea of
Galilee23 Apr 2010 (A O’Sullivan/The Media Line) -- In the coming
six weeks the Israeli government will gradually enforce a total ban
on fishing in the Sea of Galilee in an effort to bring it back to
life. The new, two-year ban will force some 200 licensed fishermen
out of the Sea of Galilee in search of a new trade.

“We will support the fishermen and make sure
the lake is restocked with fish,” Israel’s Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu said when announcing the ban after his weekly Cabinet
meeting.

The Sea of Galilee has witnessed a dramatic decline
in fish, largely due to illegal practices such as catching breeding
fish and preventing fish populations from growing. Millions of hungry
migratory birds also feed heavily on the fish.

The ban on fishing in the fresh water Sea of Galilee
in northern Israel has been discussed for some time. A joint, formal
plan was recently formulated by Israel’s Agriculture Ministry,
Environment Ministry and Treasury.

“There is a worldwide trend in the decline
of fish,” Hagay Noyberger, chief fishing ranger from the Israeli
Ministry of Agriculture tells The Media Line. “In Israel it’s
the same. It’s caused by pollution, overfishing, global warming
and other phenomena.”

Menachem Goren, an aquatic biologist from Tel Aviv
University, says overfishing was the principal problem in the declining
fish stocks.

“There are too many fishermen, too many boats,
overfishing and no management,” he says, speaking in his laboratory
with shelves full of bizarre sea creatures preserved in jars. “The
situation has become very bad not just in the reduction in the numbers
of fish, but also in the size of those which remain.”

The Ministry of Agriculture reports that there has
been a steady 20 percent decline each year in Israeli fish catches.
In 2000, for example, there was almost 4,000 tons of fresh catch recorded.
By 2006, just over 2,000 tons of fresh fish were caught.

Unlike neighboring countries, Israel does not ban
fishing during the three to four month fish reproduction season, thus
denying the fish population a chance to recover.

“In most Mediterranean countries, fishing is
banned during the summer time and this allows the fish to breed and
to grow,” says Prof. Goren. “Here in Israel we don’t
have any regulation of this kind right now. So the fishermen fish
all year round and they don’t give the fish any chance. They
remove the mothers while they are small before they get to maturity
and that is it.”

Noyberger says this too was about to change. “We
want to close areas to fishing in order to replenish the stock. It
is a long process and not something that takes a day or two,”
the fish ranger reveals. Full
story

Isolation a threat to Great Barrier
Reef fish6 Jul 2010 -- At first glance it may seem like a good idea to
be a fish living the quiet life on a small and isolated reef. But
a team of researchers has found that the opposite is the case on Australia's
Great Barrier Reef.

Using 15 years of long-term monitoring data collected
from 43 reefs by the Australian
Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), the researchers from AIMS
and the University of Adelaide have found that fish living on small,
isolated reefs face a greater risk of local extinction.

The results have been published in Ecology,
the journal of the Ecological Society of America.

"Our results support the idea that small and
isolated reefs are more susceptible to local species extinctions because
of the tendency for their fish populations to be more variable,"
says project leader Dr Camille Mellin, a Postdoctoral Fellow from
AIMS and the University of Adelaide's Environment
Institute. "Isolated reefs receive relatively fewer `immigrant'
fish from adjacent reefs. If there is a disturbance to the population,
such as a cyclone or coral bleaching, fish species on isolated reefs
are much slower to recover. These populations are not as resilient
to changes and are not easily replenished, increasing their probability
of extinction."

By contrast, larger, more populated reefs see fewer
large fluctuations in the fish population. This is partly due to the
increased competition between species, and partly because of predators,
which keep the population size in check.

"Our research suggests that conservation resources
might be better allocated to the protection of large, connected habitats,"
Mellin says. Full
story

Resources

Guidelines to Reduce Sea Turtle
Mortality in Fishing OperationsThese Guidelines
build on global efforts aimed at developing techniques that reduce
sea turtle mortality due to fisheries and show that often-simple changes
in fishing techniques and practices, coupled with the use of "turtle-friendly"
technology, can make a difference. It includes drawings and diagrams
that can guide fishers in taking onboard its suggestions. The various
methods are categorized according to the type of fishery to which
they are suited and the advantages and disadvantages of each method
are summarized for ease of reference.

FAO technical paper: International
management of tuna fisheries This paper
demonstrates that the scientific advice for the management of tuna
stocks is not generally followed, at least not on a timely basis.
The underlying issues that account for the failure of RFMOs to meet
global standards and expectations are discussed and rights-based management
systems are advanced as a means of addressing some of the management
shortcomings.

Network of protection for North
America's marine ecosystems: Online map and other resourcesThe Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) has brought
together tools and resources to help decision makers, industry, universities
and other learning institutions, as well as concerned citizens, better
understand North America's shared ocean resources. These maps and
publications include:

A new map viewer using Google Earth to explore
all of the Atlas' marine ecosystems maps and data;

Marine Ecoregions of North America: a set of maps
and detailed descriptions that provide a platform for sound management
and conservation of marine biodiversity;

Baja California to the Bering Sea: an assessment
of 28 priority conservation areas requiring concerted conservation
action along North America's West Coast; and

Conservation action plans for four marine species
of common concern for North America: vaquita porpoise, humpback
whale, leatherback turtle and pink-footed shearwater.

To explore the CEC's marine information and view
an introductory video, visit the Commission’s website.

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marine environmental and fisheries management and conservation.